"You need not be," I said stoutly. "I am by your side now to defend you. All things connected with the Mootley murder are at an end. Miss Destiny is dead; your father will probably marry his Chicago heiress and remain for ever in the States. Striver has vanished with Lucinda, and neither of them will ever be heard of again. And best of all, the eye has been destroyed." "Best of all," whispered Gertrude, clinging to me fondly, "we are together, my darling, never to part." "Never! never! never!" and I kissed her once, twice and again. "I can't go back to the drawing-room," said Gertrude, "let me retire, and take the boy back to the inn. To-morrow, when Mabel comes down to be my bridesmaid, we shall see one another again." "Never to part any more!" She sped up the stairs, and I took Cannington, still almost suffocated with laughter, to the inn. "Did you ever read such a letter, Vance?" he asked me. "I am sorry I laughed, but the cheek, the damned coolness----" "Never mind," I said, taking his arm; "I'm glad for Gertrude's sake that she has got the money. We'll repair the house and live in it, and be happy for evermore." "I'm sure you deserve to be," said the boy thoughtfully. "Well, I can only say one thing, which I said when this romance of yours began." "Don't say it, confound you!" "Yes, I shall. Adventures are to the adventurous. There!" I laughed from sheer light-heartedness. I could not help it, so strange did it seem that my love story should end where it had begun, in the quotation of the saying. THE END